Necessary Corruption 8 (Patreon)

Necessary Corruption
Chapter 8: Land of Waves

-VB-

As I bestowed another power, I felt the energy within me drop to nothing. There wouldn’t be another refill until the month passed.

I was alright with that. My ability to give supernatural powers on par with the ninjas had to be carefully used. I needed to augment only those I could trust and I knew to be loyal.

The energy reset always happened at midnight, but I had been lucky today.

“Now, tell me what you possess,” I said kindly to the young girl.

Dressed in rags and dirtier than my peasants back in the Land of Rivers, Maya was an adolescent girl I encountered in Land of Waves. I already secured her loyalty by ensuring that her family was fed and now would continue to be fed.

It was good that I gave her her new power before midnight, and thus I had wasted less energy last month than I did the previous month.

Unlike others, I decided to give her a lot of power because I needed a lieutenant to take care of the Land of Waves once my business was finished here. This wouldn’t be for some time, however.

She struggled with her words, and I had to raise my hand to keep my silent majordomo from striking the girl for her lack of response.

It took over five minutes before she finally spoke up, but it was not what I asked.

“W-Why are you being so kind?” she asked quietly.

I tilted my head. I supposed that I could humor her. I opened my lips to speak, but my majordomo spoke first.

“Peasant, a noble has asked you a question, but you dare question him instead?” he snarled.

I stopped and allowed my man to verbally discipline the girl. Had she been with any other noble, she might have been executed on the spot, good power or not, because there were limits to generosity and kindness. In most Elemental Nations, there was a strict hierarchy, and the inability of one’s ability to follow the code was to be ousted and killed.

If this girl could become my minion, then she would first have to be educated.

Perhaps this was my fault. It was on a whim that I took a dirty girl and gave her power. I had been running out of time to give someone a power this month, and she just happened to be in my path. Unfortunately, all peasants were undisciplined and uneducated. My peasants back in the Land of Rivers had access to both discipline and education materials the poor and downtrodden of the Land of Waves did not.

“Washimoto.”

My man quickly halted his tirade and stood at attention.

“Have this girl be properly educated,” I said as I stood up. “Let me know what power she also got.”

“Hai!”

I left the room, unaware of the fact that Washimoto had a rather scary look on his face and the girl trembling before him.

-VB-

That night, I sat in my bedroom while Washimoto sat kneeling in front of me.

I contemplated on his report of the girl.

“A power-loaner, huh?” I mumbled. Her power was very close in appearance to mine, but limited in what she could “loan out” and how long she could do it for. She was limited to giving out a copy of her own power, a barrier, and Washimoto told me that she believed she could give out “six pieces of it.” It would leave her vulnerable, however, if she gave out all of her pieces.

“She will be useful as a bodyguard,” I noted.

“She will be, milord,” he agreed. “She is, however, too meek for any public showing.”

I hummed. “It can be taught. We have over a year to take over this land. I don’t mind taking her education a bit slowly.”

“As you will it, milord.”

“Anything else?”

“Her family is connected with the local leader,” he said as he produced a scroll. I unfurled it and read its content.

“Ho?”

The girl’s name was Gina, and she was the grandnephew of the local construction guild’s master bridge builder, Tazuna. He was trying to build a bridge to connect the Land of Fire with the Land of Waves.

“I wonder…” I muttered as I sat the scroll down. I grinned triumphantly. “I think we have our connection to the locals, Washimoto, and all because of my whim. Get in contact with Tazuna. We’ll push him into the political stage with ourselves as the shadow backers. Using him, we’ll get rid of Gato.”

“Do you think he’ll go for it?”

“Whether a bridge gets built or not will not hinder our operations here. In fact, it may even help with the distribution of our goods.”

Washimoto’s eyes widened. “You mean…?”

“While the trade routes going back and forth Wind and Fire provided enough routes into both for our goods, the Land of Waves will provide another route to markets that may not yet have heard or sampled our product.”

“I see. Why fight against the locals when you can use them to our advantage, is it not, milord?”

“Exactly. Get me in contact with this Tazuna. The Land of Waves is the kind of situation that gets ninjas involved, sooner or later. I want to preempt both sides.”

And I didn’t even need to use ninjas. Not when I had my own core of superpower soldiers.

Hmm…

Hey, could I do what Gatou did? The midget gave the boy-daimyo trinkets.

What happened if I got the daimyo hooked to some good old opium?

The raw and pure stuff.

The stuff that make nobles pay out of their nose.

I chuckled to myself as a plan came together.

‘And if the addicted boy-daimyo dies from overdose and happens to leave the nation to the man who provided his daily “goods,” then that’s just a good bonus, now isn’t it?’

Yes…

It was all coming together.